On September 22, 2022, UNCDF in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation, hosted its 1st Annual Investment Forum: Capital Pathways for Frontier Economies. The Forum was conducted on the sidelines of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

During the Forum, UNCDF launched its Capital Pathways platform, which is intended to scale pathways to capital in support of sustainable finance, specifically for the world’s frontier markets of today and the growth markets of tomorrow.

UNCDF and The Rockefeller Foundation were fortunate enough to have an audience that featured two heads of state—H.E. Lazarus Chakwera, President of the Republic of Malawi and H.E. Dr. Moeketsi Majoro, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Lesotho—as well as H.E. Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Several ministers from frontier economies were also present at the investment forum, including Burundi, Zambia and Malawi.

(From Malawi in particular: Minister of Climate Change and Natural Resources - Honourable Eisenhower Mkaka; Mr. Richard Perekamoyo- Principal Secretary, Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Malawi; Mr. Alfonso Chikuni- Principal Secretary, Ministry of Energy.)

Finally, senior leadership from a variety of financial institutions were in attendance, representing Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan and Mastercard among others.

UNCDF is happy to provide a photo gallery/visual history of the 1st Annual Investment Forum to acknowledge this watershed moment for the organization (please note that images will be continually added).

This 1st Annual Investment Forum featured the leadership of Sara Farley, Vice President, Food Initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation; Preeti Sinha, Executive Secretary of UNCDF; and H.E. Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation, Arab Republic of Egypt.

UNCDF was honored to be joined by two heads of state--H.E. Lazarus Chakwera, President of the Republic of Malawi and H.E. Dr. Moeketsi Majoro, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Lesotho. We were also joined by Ms. Al Shaima Al-Sheiby, Senior Director, Strategic Planning and Economic Services of the OPEC Fund for Development.

Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry of the Republic of Zambia, Honourable Chipoka Mulenga addressed the forum regarding sustainable development projects in the country. To the Minister's left is Peter Sullivan, Public Sector Head for Africa at Citi.

UNCDF's 1st Annual Investment Forum was presided by Preeti Sinha, UNCDF Executive Secretary. Leadership from several prominent financial institutions were also in attendance. To the left of Preeti Sinha is Liz Bronder, Managing Director, Global Sustainable Finance, Bank of America.

Food security was an essential theme of UNCDF's 1st Annual Investment Forum. UNCDF was fortunate to have The Rockefeller Foundation as a co-host of the event. Sara Farley, Vice President, Food Initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation & Mia Blakstad, Senior Program Associate, Food Initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation—true practice leaders in their field—were in attendance.

Jay Collins, Vice Chairman, Banking, Capital Markets, Advisory shared essential observations on the realities that need to be acknowledged for sustainable financing to achieve scale. On the opposite side are Stephen Murray, Principal of Crossboundary and Edoardo Tancioni of UNCDF.

UNCDF recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the OPEC Fund for Development and is exploring projects in the area of clean energy. Ms. Al Shaima Al-Sheiby, Senior Director, Strategic Planning and Economic Services (center) delivered remarks on how the OPEC Fund is advancing development finance now and in the future. To her left is Jiten Wignarajah, Executive Director of Development Finance & Mobilization with the JPMorgan Development Finance Institution. To her right is Mohammad Abbadi of UNCDF.

Dale Galvin, Managing Director of the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR), discussed how blended finance can be leveraged to support nature assets and biodiversity finance. The GFCR is the larger blended finance initiative dedicated to SDG 14 by de-risking and unlocking reef positive private investment increasing marine ecosystems and coastal community resilience. GFCR will invest $125M in technical assistance and $500M in Equity. Pegasus Capital is the private asset manager and UNCDF host the GFCR Secretariat.